Beaker singing “Ode to Joy” is not a redub or reedit of old episodes of “The Muppet Show.” It’s one part of original web content featuring various characters from “The Muppet Show” created and produced by the Henson Company. Some of them include “Classical Chicken” with Gonzo, and “Rolling with the Skateboarding Dog” with Rowlf the Dog. What I find unique about the clips is that they update the Muppets to the digital age while retaining the character of Muppets as they have been since the ‘70s. The “Rolling with the Skateboarding Dog” has Rowlf with the skateboarding viral video bulldog and trying to do his own trick. At the end of some of the Muppet clips, we see Waldorf and Stadler peering into their own “web cam” criticizing the clips (W: How many hits did that receive? S: Unfortunately not enough to kill it.). Much the same way “The Muppet Show” parodied, as well as celebrated, the form of the variety show, these web clips use the viral form for as much of the comedy as well as the delivery of the message. In that sense, it is self-referential and thus keeps the brand name and brand quality intact.

On top of this, the advantages to posting it as a YouTube video have clear benefits to the company. When I showed it to my daughter, she wanted to see some of the other Muppet “boxes” (which is what she calls them). Each link led to another, including those clips, redubs and reedits of “Muppet Show” episodes. She loved a bunch of the clips of the show itself and it brought back fond memories for me. Because of that I was looking on Ebay pricing DVD packages of the first and/or second seasons of the “Muppet Show” to buy for my daughter. Now, this seed alone of  “Ode to Joy” received 4.5 million hits. Suppose that only 10% of those start to do what I did and look up the Season One DVD of the “Muppet Show” and 10% of that 10% decide to buy the DVD set– roughly 1% of those who saw the clip. That would be still 45,000 units of Season One “Muppet Show” DVDs sold. Even at the Amazon.com rate of $33.99, that means over $1.5 million in revenue for the company ($1,529,550). If they shopped around and got a deal at $23, that’s still $1 million and change for the company ($1,035,000). That’s mostly revenue for pushing existing stock of inventory for one season of DVDs. Even if the cost of one of the viral videos is close to $100,000 or more, the cost to profit ratio easily justifies the expense of the video. Take those numbers and extrapolate them across all other instances of the video and other videos (mentioned above) and we have a serious needle-mover.

Even if it didn’t lead to a sale, it leads to more recognition of the existing brand and continues the legacy of the show and company to a new generation, which is often immeasurable. Separating the quality product from the inferior is essential for any company, especially for children’s programming. Using the online community resources to help plug your product can mean the difference between not only profit and loss, but between obscure fad and sustainable memory that can survive generation gaps.

The statistical data shows that MySpace is still the largest and most active social networking site. Hitwise.com has MySpace at number three on their top 20 Website list with a 3.71% market share of internet traffic; Facebook is number six with a 1.65% market share. While MySpace is still number one by clear margins, Facebook has been creeping up over the last 18 months. The anecdotal information seems to bear this out as well. I have been friend requested more and more by friends on Facebook whom I first met on MySpace in the last few months than ever before. I know that my personal perceptions are trumped by data from Hitwise, and this is a debate that’s been going on for at least a year and is still raging, so don’t expect me to definitively settle this at all. However what this really comes down to is the basic marketing maxim of knowing your audience and using the best site for what you need.

If you’re a comedian, an artist, in a band, or made a film, you need a MySpace page. The ability to design your own page template, post your own videos, songs, photos, etc. makes this the ideal site to market your art—whatever that may be. While getting friend requested by people you’ve never heard of can be annoying, for the artist trying to gain an audience it is one of the most beneficial word of mouth methodologies you can use. When I was creating my web series, I used MySpace to put out the casting notices as well as track down a couple of actors that were otherwise unreachable. I was able to gain a specific fan base and even hire a makeup artist for the show as time went on. For all the friending of strippers and bands you have to go through on MySpace, if you are in any kind of artistic field you are going to need this site.

The use of Facebook is different. If you want to track down old high school friends, college friends, business acquaintances, favorite hot dog vendors, you’ll be able to find each other on Facebook. Where you may not realize the page for “~I AM DA BOMB FO’SHO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~” on MySpace is an old college bud, Facebook makes it easier to figure that out. Plus asking “are you such-and-such” in the friend request seems to cut through the confusion. Marketing yourself here is trickier in that you are among friends, not an expanding audience. If you’re planning a big get together for friends, it’s great; if you want to hype a new product, not so much. However, empirical data shows that the ads posted on Facebooks get more productive cost-per-click ads than on MySpace, and the crowd on Facebook tends to be more affluent.

However there are definite times when being among friends works for you. If you’re looking for work you want to ask people you know—four out of five jobs are found this way. The various groups on Facebook are much more straightforward, easy to join and start posting for things. The community is also great moral support. In these tough times, when I was going through my job malaise, the simple status message of “David is DESPERATELY LOOKING FOR A NEW JOB!” was enough to get my Facebook friends to lend a good ear. One of them told me to send my resume to a recruiting friend of theirs. Different social networks, different purposes, different results.

Whether MySpace is adding the application ability that Facebook has had on for the last year is eventually irrelevant. What’s important is knowing your product and who to speak to. If you know your product, you know the audience you need to reach; knowing that can help you figure out which social network to be on. It’s good to be on both sites but for different reasons on being on either.